Persuade me, please

[washishu]

I've been playing SH (on and off) since SH1 but have spent most time with SH2 & SH3. I have decided to give SH4 a try and I have a couple of comments/questions which I'd appreciate responses/answers to. All comments received of course, but I'd be especially interested to hear from those who regularly play both SH3 & SH4.

Seems to me that the whole SH4 interface is not well designed and is extremely fussy and visually complex. Especially the clumsy orders buttons, the text box (for the orders etc.) which is in the way no matter where you put it, and that crew management screen - whoever designed that should be hung by the neck until dead. I appreciate that it takes time to become accustomed to any new interface but the whole thing seems so poorly designed that I'm bound to wonder if it's worth the effort.

It's not unreasonable (is it?) to expect that version four of any software would be an improvement upon previous versions and although this will be, to some degree, a matter of opinion, SH4 seems to have more in common with SH1 or 2 than it does with SH3. And I don't mean the change back to the Pacific; for example the inability to control precisely the raising of the periscope - this was a feature lacking in the early versions when processors etc. were not as powerful and in this and other aspects, we seem to have taken a step backward here. What am I missing?

Q: is there a decent manual available for SH4?

The standard pdf "manual" is little short of an insult to the intelligence. It was written, it appears, by someone with either a limited level of literacy or who was just having a laugh; certainly they had almost no idea of how to communicate in written English. I wish games companies would recognise that copy writing is a skill and would not just give the job to anyone who happens to be sitting there doing nothing. (I believe it was George Bernard Shawe who once said that he spent a morning deciding where to put a comma and the afternoon deciding whether to take it out). If you think I'm being quite picky and critical here, damn right I am; they're wanting us to give 'em money for this stuff and the least they can do is pay some attention to the details. Besides, I've spent over thirty years working in the graphic communications business and I just can't help noticing sloppy, careless presentation.

As far as I can find out from the forums here, the "standard" mods for SH4 seem to be TMO and FOTRS. The Grey Wolves mod for SH3, apart from adding additional ships and environmental details and such, also considerably improves the interface and gameplay of the boxed set game.

Q: do these mods improve any of the (seems to me many) design faults of SH4 or are they just what might be called eye candy?

On the positive side, the visuals are excellent and I love the Japanese warships sending semaphore light signals to each other - see? I'm not opposed to eye candy but it seems to me there are many other issues to be put right first.

To all you dedicated SH4 Wolves of the Pacific; come on, persuade me; I'd like to spend some time in warm Pacific waters or should I just go back to the cold North Atlantic?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by washishu

Seems to me that the whole SH4 interface is not well designed and is extremely fussy and visually complex. Especially the clumsy orders buttons, the text box (for the orders etc.) which is in the way no matter where you put it, and that crew management screen - whoever designed that should be hung by the neck until dead.

I'm not sure I should be answering this, since you want a friend of mine hung by the neck until dead.

Now that that's out of the way, I've found no problems with the SH4 interface other than that no one has duplicated the 'Simfeeling 6-Dials' mod for SH3, which removes everything from the screen and makes them all slide-outs. It took me about a week to get used to the text box, and for the last five years I've hardly noticed it.

The Crew Management screen? I think it's better than SH3's. I know where my crew are and what they're doing at all times. I'm not to happy about having to move the gun crew into position myself, but I live with it. And the Watch Officer moves to the bridge without me taking him by the hand.

I appreciate that it takes time to become accustomed to any new interface but the whole thing seems so poorly designed that I'm bound to wonder if it's worth the effort.

That's a fair opinion, but I disagree. I think SH4 is a definite improvement over SH3, and only wish it had gotten the same attention from the modders.

It's not unreasonable (is it?) to expect that version four of any software would be an improvement upon previous versions and although this will be, to some degree, a matter of opinion, SH4 seems to have more in common with SH1 or 2 than it does with SH3. And I don't mean the change back to the Pacific; for example the inability to control precisely the raising of the periscope - this was a feature lacking in the early versions when processors etc. were not as powerful and in this and other aspects, we seem to have taken a step backward here. What am I missing?

The Insert-Delete-Page Up-Page Down buttons don't work for you? They seem okay to me.

Q: is there a decent manual available for SH4?

No. The supermods all come with pretty good manuals, though.

The standard pdf "manual" is little short of an insult to the intelligence.

As was SH3's. No one seems to be interested in writing a decent manual anymore.

Q: do these mods improve any of the (seems to me many) design faults of SH4 or are they just what might be called eye candy?

TMO is not only focused on AI and gameplay improvements, that is its main focus. Graphics improvements are basically concerned with fixing graphics problems.

FOTRS is based on TMO but takes it in a different direction. Someone with experience with that mod will have to give a full explanation.

RFB (Real Fleet Boat) is another great supermod, and again its focus is on fixing the AI and handling problems first, and graphics second.

To all you dedicated SH4 Wolves of the Pacific; come on, persuade me; I'd like to spend some time in warm Pacific waters or should I just go back to the cold North Atlantic?

As to that, considering the way you started your attack, all I can say is that I don't know you, I'm not sure I care to, and I couldn't care less whether you are persuaded or not. My assessment was as honest as I could make it, but I'm not going to try to convince you of anything, because I thought your approach was rude, arrogant and dismissive.

[Capt. Morgan]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

...I couldn't care less whether you are persuaded or not...

Stole my thunder.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

Stole my thunder.

Hell, I wouldn't have even cracked the seal on this thread if other members I respect on the forum hadn't of. The 'Persuade me' title of the thread alone makes me envision my neighbor's step-son that never received corporal persuasion a day in his life. Steve gave this more patience and effort than I woulda.

Now watch the thread author step up to the plate and persuade me to change my opinion. (Ok, so maybe my internal pessimist and optimist come out all bi-polarish at times.)

[CCIP]

I think the interface is also a very much a matter of personal preference. Personally, I prefer the SH4 interface to standard SH3 and SH2, and prefer it by miles to SH5's. I find it a lot easier to get to the information I need from the screen, and most orders should be given via key shortcuts anyway. Some of the modded SH3 and SH5 interfaces are better, but out of the box... I honestly don't see why it compares so unfavourably.

There's lots of good information you can find on the forum. If you're familiar with SH3, I don't think you really need a manual for basic functions of the game, and there's lots of great resources here if you want to find out more about the subs themselves.

As with any new game, I think one thing that you're experiencing is the switchover from your 'comfort zone' - if you enjoyed SH3 so much, you probably developed a lot of habits unique to that game and interface, and any changes from them feel weird and unnatural. My advice is give it time and let it grow on you. SH4 is still honestly my favourite of the series, and though it's far from perfect and not as extensively modded as SH3, you can get a really good experience of it. The latest version of TMO is a great mod package that isn't really missing much of anything, anyway, except for some of the extra shine and polish (like extravagant numbers of new units and graphics) that the big SH3 mods offer. Same could be said for OM, the mod to go to if you want a full-on U-boat experience (for all theaters). But the most important gameplay/simulation elements that actually matter make for a stable, well-performing, good-looking game - on those 3 things alone it's miles above any SH3 version.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Well, Sailor Steve has covered your inquisition much better than I could've. You say that you've decided to give SHIV a try, yet you ask for convincing. That sounds rather indecisive. Still, for someone who alludes to not ever having played the game, you seem to have quite a predisposition toward SHIV. No one had to convince me. I tried it myself, developed my own opinion from my own experience, and have been playing it ever since. I cannot comment on (or berate against) similarities to SH1, 2 or 3 since I've never played them and have no baseline with which to compare. Good luck in your endeavor.

[Fish40]

Either you want to play it or not! If you do, game interfaces et.al, won't mean a thing. If you really want to give this, or anything for that matter a try, you'll accept changes and deal accordingly That's life my friend!

[Rockin Robbins]

SH4 is the best submarine simulator in the world right now, warts and all. And I'll agree with some of your warts, the interface not being one of my agreement points, or the crew management either. Frankly if you want a good submarine simulator there is no choice, except for SH3, which shares all the same defects.

Let me educate you on how software versions work. It is a myth that the same people are involved in successive versions. Often, even different companies are publishing the different versions, forget about having the same people there. So Version 1 gets done. It was in development for as long as it took to get it right. The company publishes it and it does well. But games have a fatal defect. They produce one big slurg of money and nothing after that.

What do you do? Version 2! Maybe the game company was eaten in corporate Pac Man, maybe the programmers of version 1 are busy working on some FPS game that week, doesn't matter, programmers have no unique skills worth noticing--they just do as they are told. A new team is assigned to version 2.

They don't know how version 1 worked. They take a look at it and think they can use a module here or there, but they don't know how the modules work, can't modify them, so they use them as in, slamming square pegs into round holes just to save some work. This transfers some of the defects from v1 directly into v2. Then they add more defects by the mismatch between the requirements for the new game engine and the output of the v1 modules. Then the programmers introduce their own creative bugs in the software they write themselves. Oh yeah, there's a few improvements to give them something to advertise. Shove it out there! What, It's not ready yet? Too bad! We don't expect to sell as many units as v1 anyway, gotta limit expenses. It's only a drink coaster, whaddya want? It produces another not quite as big a slurg of money as v1.

Repeat for v3, v4 and v5, each version keeping the accumulated bugs and idiocies of the previous version, introducing a passel of their own and introducing some inconsequential improvement over the previous version.

Software, even business software, tends to devolve with successive releases. In the newspaper I worked at we used the Collier-Jackson newspaper software. It was an excellent package in 1988. But as it got passed from company to company, programming group to programming group, with a new release every couple of years, by 2000 it was a smelly rotten hulk, just a shell really of mostly nonfunctioning parts. Everything was a workaround of some sort and none of the elegance of the original software was retained at all.

Similarly, the Silent Hunter series has changed hands and programming crews several times. SH3 was actually a shining exception to the rule, as it was a brand new concept and all programming done from scratch with as much time as necessary taken by the Romanian programming crew that revolutionized submarine simulation. The SH4 crew contained a couple of the members of the SH3 programmers, so it mostly maintained the standard while introducing some notable improvements over SH3. Even it suffered from some devolving due to the mechanism above.

Take it or leave it. SH4 is the best we're going to get with the business model of putting out drink coasters that produce a single slurg of money to the game companies. They are too focused on limiting expenses to produce excellence. As a matter of fact, they need a dictionary to recall what "excellence" means. They are all about minimizing expenses.

All the same, SH4 is a darned good submarine simulator, the best ever made and it has been undisputed champion, along with SH3 for four years. That's not bad performance from a drink coaster. I look forward to your better simulator that you are undoubtedly preparing and let me know if you need a beta tester.

[Sailor Steve]

RR, I love your take on this. It makes sense, and it fits what I know of SH3, 4 and 5. Unfortunately by that standard I have to qualify your statement; SH4 is the best ongoing simulator. Aces Of The Deep is still the best stand alone sub simulator. Nothing yet has touched its gameplay. That said, SH4 allows more modability and more realism in the approach, if not the quality of AI action, and can still be worked with. And SH4's graphics are seventeen years behind the time.

So I agree, in a half-hearted sort of way.

[washishu]

Well that certainly seems to have stirred up some sediment. Not my intention but there you go I suppose; that was my error; I don't possess any psychic-reading powers (unlike some it seems; that's a good trick; where can I learn how to do that? I don't think I want to go so far as beating people though.)

It was intended as a piece of very tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted jest, slightly provocative perhaps, but has been taken far, far more seriously than ever intended. I wonder if that's the key perhaps; to me this is just a website forum about a computer game. A Game. A very, very good one in many, many respects, but a game nonetheless and it has only very slight connection with the real world. It's a consumer product and I make much the same demands of it as I do of any other consumer product. It's computer software and I make much the same demands of it as I do of any of the other computer software I use. Sometimes weeks or months go by and I don't even think about Silent Hunter.

The comments about design team continuity etc. are fairly made but those type of issues are not new to the games industry and established methods and procedures exist to guard against them; I'd go so far as to suggest that it's standard business practice - or it certainly should be in an industry that now grosses more than the film industry.

My original comments relate to frustrations and disappointments directed towards the industry as a whole and I stand by that. The unprofessional standard of the written communications within the games and in the instruction manuals suggests that they are produced by people who either -

- have a level of literacy that is not of a level I believe we have a right to expect in professional copy writing.

Or

- Do not have the necessary quality checking and controls in place, such as is provided in traditional media by editors and sub-editors.

Or

– they have a cynical disregard for the consumer / end user and a "what the hell?" attitude.

Absent from the list above is the packaging for games, which, in my experience is more often than not the only aspect which demonstrates that professionals familiar with textual communications have had a hand.

Finally, if, Sailor Steve, you found my "hung by the neck until dead" remark offensive to your friend, that was not my intention and I really can't believe that you thought I was serious. I still find that screen to be very visually cluttered and unclear and although the "new interface" comment is well made, that screen does not encourage me to persist to the point of familiarity. That's my opinion; your and other peoples' opinions are different; fine. I note that you state you have had many years naval service "before most of you were born". That will, clearly, colour your views. Similarly I have had more than forty years experience in and around the publishing industry and that colours my views.